Richard Nixon and the Whales

25,000 California grey whales have hit the road for their annual migration from the rich feeding grounds of Alaska to the warmer birthing waters of Mexico’s Baja lagoons.  I saw a couple of them today, swimming south just a few hundred yards off shore. They surfaced, blew air out of their spouts, took a quick look, and resumed their 4 knot per hour swim.

It’s a 6000 mile journey, 12,000 round trip, south around Christmas, back north early spring, longest migration of any mammal.  They swim so close to shore because it’s shorter, a more direct route, because it’s safer, especially coming back north with their young babies, who are easy prey to hungry orcas, and because, scientists think, they might actually navigate by sight;  “Look we’re in Monterey already, half way there!”  As a guide at the Monterey Bay Aquarium I tell guests that the whales, after feasting all summer on the rich amphipods of the Bering Sea, notice it’s getting cold and say, “Hey, I have an idea.  Let’s go to Mexico and have babies.” 

Grey whales were hunted so aggressively that they almost became extinct in the last century, just as their Atlantic cousins were exterminated in the 18^th century.  An international commercial whaling industry slaughtered and harvested them by the thousands for their oil and bone. Whaling ships scoured the ocean for humpbacks and sperm and all kinds of whales, but the greys were easier to hunt because of their predictable and coastal migration.  And when the hunters finally found the Mexican birthing lagoons, they just waited at the narrow entrances and turned the waters red with their blood.

Who saved the whales?  Human compassion for our fellow higher mammals?  Animal activists and recordings of whale songs?  No, it was kerosene and Richard Nixon.

I was taught that whale oil was so valuable because it gave light to dark Colonial American homes; I had this romantic image that the slaughter was not in vain if Thomas Jefferson could see to write the Declaration of Independence by a whale oil lamp. But the whale slaughter was also fueled by the gears and wheels of the Industrial Revolution.  All those cogs needed grease to move.  First the Atlantic and then Pacific whales kept those machines humming.  But mid 19^th century inventors in the US, Poland and Scotland each figured out how to turn coal into an inexpensive liquid fuel which is called kerosene in the US, paraffin in the UK, Asia and South Africa.  Almost overnight the whale oil industry crashed.

But the whales weren’t safe yet.  Some nations still whaled (and still do.)  And the whale population was so decimated it struggled for decades to recover.

Richard NixonThat’s where Richard Nixon comes in.  It’s hard to remember that Nixon, President “Actually, I am a Crook” was a far different kind of Republican than we’ve seen in these parts for a long time since.  Environmental protection passed during his administration include the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, National Marine Sanctuaries Act, the Marine Mammal Protection Act and the Endangered Species Act.  In 1972 it became illegal to threaten, harass or kill any marine mammal in US waters and the endangered species list included grey whales.  That same year the United Nations passed a resolution calling for an end to commercial whaling.

In those Baja lagoons today grey whales frolic freely and safely, both birthing and mating.  Instead of blood red waters there are small, carefully regulated local whale watching companies.  The fantastic book Eye of the Whale by Dick Russell about the grey whales tells the story of how the budding environmental movement in Mexico solicited international pressure to protect the lagoons, and then fought off a more recent effort by Mutsubishi to build a huge salt plant there.  Turns out that old Industrial Revolution, now dominated by the tech industry, is just as hungry for salt and other chemicals.  Once again the whales almost lost out to human progress.

Baja Lagoons, MexicoAs those locals take you out in small zodiacs on the lagoon, the mother whales, 40 ft long, 40 tons, push their babies (a mere 10 feet long, 10 tons) up against the boats, and you can reach out and touch them.  The locals call them “los ballenos amicabiles”, the friendly whales.  One thrash of her tail and we’d all be in the water.  But that never happens.  An old fisherman first noticed this curious behavior in 1972, the calm approach by the mothers, the babies resting beside humans.  As a child he’d seen the whales avoid the boats, or even attack them.  But now they approach and look you straight in the eye.  Ocean scientists Sylvia Earle says, “Whale watching takes on a whole new meaning when the whales are watching you.”

The author of Eye of the Whale asked locals and experts why the whales became so friendly in 1972, why these “encounters of the first kind?”  Various theories.  My favorite?  What else happened that year?  The Marine Mammal Protection Act and the UN resolution.  Maybe whales were saying, “OK, thanks for that.  It’s a start.  Better late than never.  Let’s communicate.  Let’s begin maybe a little trust.  Here, meet my baby.”

Thanks, Dick. 

Copyright © 2013 Deborah Streeter.

King and Roe: Two Religious Holidays

In the US calendar of holidays, we set aside two days in January to recall recent historical events; the birthday of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and the anniversary of the Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion, Roe v. Wade. 

King’s birthday (actually Jan 15, 1929) is a federal holiday, celebrated the 3^rd Monday of the month, creating a 3-day weekend, this year Jan. 21.  This will also be Inauguration Day for President Obama – a nice coincidence. 

Roe v. Wade, not an official holiday, but always an occasion for praise and protest, was handed down by the Supreme Court on Jan. 22, 1973, making this its 40^th anniversary.

So two days in a row, Jan. 21 and 22, we will recall the struggle and accomplishments of two freedom movements of our time, civil rights and reproductive rights.

But why call them religious holidays?  They’re not Christmas or Yom Kippur.  But religious they are, not just for celebrating freedom and justice, but because without religious leaders and faithful actions, neither holiday would exist.  In fact, no social justice movement has succeeded in the US without the active support of the religious community. Civil rights and reproductive rights are no exception. 

The average American is more aware of King’s birthday than of the abortion decision; banks, post offices and schools will close Jan. 21, but not the 22^nd.  But there might actually be more news coverage this year of Roe v. Wade than King, because of the 40^th anniversary.  Already Time Magazine has had a cover story, “They’ve Been Losing Ever Since,” to indicate how precarious abortion rights are these days in the US. Gail Collins has a good summary in the New York Times about how many states have chipped away at the right. Articles about King will certainly reflect on the reelection of our first black president; would that have happened without King’s prophetic and courageous work?

So what will religious folks have to say about these two holidays?  Depends on your religious perspective.  The mainstream media would have us think all Americans are evangelical Christians, but there really is a very diverse religious landscape.  And within each major religious tradition there is a progressive wing and a conservative wing.  More often conservative Catholics and Baptists and Jews have more in common with each other than do progressive and conservative Catholics.

Conservative Republicans, Catholics and the religious right will all certainly use Jan. 22 as a way to bemoan the sin of “baby murder” and call for even more restrictions on reproductive freedom and health choices for women.  They were dismayed that their “pro-rape” candidates all lost in the election just two months ago and that so many pro-choice women were elected. 

These same anti-freedom groups will be more subtle on Jan. 21, both about King and President Obama, but there will be the usual dog whistle racist bemoaning of “welfare mothers” and the large “urban” vote, in Romney’s words, that carried the day for Obama. They’re in denial not only about reproductive freedoms; they also ignore the dramatic ethnic shifts in the electorate. Hispanic and Asian Americans voted overwhelmingly Democratic; even more blacks voted for Obama in 2012 than 2008.

But other religious folks besides the right will weigh in on both holidays.  King, the only religious leader to be honored with an official US federal holiday (if you don’t include Jesus) was a progressive, not conservative Christian.   King’s every cell was formed by his faith in God; his language was Biblical at core. Too many Americans think of him as only a social and political leader.   Some years ago my kids came home from public school with a handout about Dr. King and his legacy with no mention that he was first and foremost a minister, not just a political leader.  Some of the teachers did not know that “Let my people go,” “I’ve been to the mountain top;” are Bible quotes, nor did their canned units on King speak of the role of churches in the civil rights movement.  These teachers always got a reminder call from me in January.   In the same way I recalled for them each November that separation of church and state does not forbid some church history in the Thanksgiving Day curriculum. 

(Don’t get me going on how I objected when the December spelling list had two religious words, “menorah” and “Kris Kringle” as if they were equivalent.  Teach about both Hannakuh and Christmas or neither.  Those poor teachers got visits from me November, December, and January, all on the subject on including religious history and themes in their teaching.)

We are not a Christian nation, but religion, Christianity and other religions, plays an integral part of our story.  So most mainline Protestant churches and many Jewish temples will honor King in worship Jan. 20 and tell the story of Moses, of the four little girls murdered in church, of King’s trip to the mountaintop.  But conservative churches will probably ignore it.  If you’re preaching about sexual sins all the time, praying for Cadillacs, and saying God helps the man who helps himself (actually that’s Beowulf, not the Bible) you don’t have much to say about racism and civil rights. No “least of these” is their gospel.

And Roe v. Wade is also a religious affirmation, that children are precious and must be wanted and cared for, and that women are full moral agents.  Fewer churches, but some, will mark this day as well.  Margaret Sanger, the mother of birth control, doesn’t have a federal holiday, nor do the abortion doctors murdered still in recent years for practicing medicine. (Dr. George Tiller was gunned down while ushering in church in 2009; his self avowed killer said his Christian faith supported killing the abortion doctor; both Christians.)

Rev. Howard Moody was pastor at the prominant, Rockefeller founded and funded Judson Memorial Church in NYC in the 1960’s when abortion was legal in New York State, but not yet nationally. Moody and his church organized an abortion counseling and referral service out of the church and later a low cost abortion clinic there. Young women  from all over the country came to Judson Church for help.  Some called it another Underground Railroad.   Moody then founded the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, gathering 1400 clergy members in its first year, 1967.  Now a group of over 40 different denominations, RCRC has fought each effort by the religious right to overturn Roe v. Wade; they deserves a holiday of their own for their 45 year history of interfaith cooperation. 

Faithful Americans will remember King and Roe this coming week.  And all Americans can thank their bold fellow citizens like King and Sanger and Moody, people of faith, for helping us judge someone, in King’s words, by the content of their character, not the color of their skin (or their gender.)  I’m thankful for that.

Copyright © 2013 Deborah Streeter

Shootout at the Constitutional Corral

Just as all politics is local, so is all journalism.  Following the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre last month, enterprising reporters across the nation wrote all kinds of local stories.  What are our local gun laws?  What is our local school policy on safety? What do our local community leaders think about it all?

My favorite was the White Plains, NY Journal News, which published an interactive Google map with the names and addresses of the 44,000 registered handgun owners in the two large New York City suburbs they serve, Westchester and Rockland counties.

In New York State, gun ownership is public information.  It helps police to track ownership when a gun is used in a crime.  Like all kinds of business we conduct with a government agency, it’s public.  Especially since Watergate, Americans like the Freedom of Information Act.

But in neighboring Connecticut, where the massacre took place, and in many other states, a newspaper could not have published such a list.  That state actually has a very strong gun control law, but it only passed with a concession to gun owners that their records not be public information.  (In some states you don’t even have to register your guns.)

It is crazy to have such a patchwork of gun laws from community to community and state to state.  It’s like how crazy-making it is that our voting laws and policies vary so much from state to state (are there written or electronic ballots, can a felon vote, how long before the election must you register, etc; there is no consistency.)  This is a huge US challenge – when are we a united nation, and when are we a union of different almost sovereign states?

Gun owners in those two NY counties objected loudly to the published list.  Where usually they trumpet their constitutional second amendment right to bear arms, now they charged a violation of their constitutional right to privacy.  Besides this broad right, they argued that some gun owners (police officers, women with restraining orders against violent husbands) especially need anonymity.

Americans love their right to privacy.  I think it stems from the same attitude as our love of guns.  Leave me alone, let me do anything I want, and if you don’t I will shoot you.

Problem is, the word privacy never appears in the Constitution.  A right to privacy has only evolved from various court rulings around birth control, sexual behavior and abortion.  Hard fought cases, and capable of being overturned at any time by our conservative Supreme Court.  And so confusing, to me at least.  How can conservatives argue “Keep government out of our private lives!” But then say, “Oh no, you have no right to privacy when it comes to sex.”  Americans are pretty conflicted and confused about sex and guns.  We can tell people who they can sleep with, but not who they can shoot.

But the White Plains newspaper said that public safety outweighed the privacy rights of these gun owners.  There are public lists of registered sex offenders so that parents can see if their child is going to play at a home in a neighborhood where such an offender lives.  Why not have such information about whether Johnny’s playmate’s home has guns in it?

(This same public safety argument was used by pediatricians to defend their practice of asking parents of young children if there are guns in the house, just as they ask about use of seat belts and child proof medicine caps.  Florida gun owners objected to that kind of public health medical practice and passed a law forbidding doctors from asking that question.  I think that one is in the courts now.)

Back in White Plains, an angry gun owner retaliated by publishing on his website a piece called “Sauce for the Goose” with the home addresses and phone numbers of the staff of the offending newspaper.  He added in snide comments like, “Here’s the Facebook page of the publisher, with pictures of her kids.  Hello Sanctimonious.”

The newspaper got so many threatening calls and letters that they hired armed guards, yes, armed, at its offices.  This reminded me of the National Rifle Association’s response to the massacre.  They want to arm every teacher; that would have saved all those little kids, they said.

The threat of guns is like mushrooms; it just spawns more threat of guns, and more guns of threat.

(There was another mass shooting the week after Sandy Hook, in Illinois this time, in a church, where they were putting up Christmas decorations.  I guess the NRA would say that not just teachers, but preachers, start packing heat.)

But we’re not done with White Plains.  Fox News reported (consider the source) that convicts in a local prison were intimidating the gun owning guards; “We know where you live.”  I’m encouraged to hear that the convicts read the paper.

So now, among all the proposed new gun legislation in all these different communities, are new laws that would make it illegal to publish gun owner’s information.  Forget public safety; keep the door locked on my privacy.

But I think the door is stuck open, probably gone forever.  With Facebook and Google there’s no such thing as privacy any more.  Unless we try to shoot them too.

Copyright © 2013 Deborah Streeter

A History of the World in 5 American Objects

Christmas brought to our house the new book,  A History of the World in 100 Object by Neil MacGregor, Director of the British Museum.  Originally a BBC radio series, the 100 objects range from a 2 million-year-old hand axe from the Olduvai Gorge to a contemporary Chinese solar powered lamp and charger, all from the museum’s collection.  

I spent a delightful Christmas afternoon perusing chapters on a Byzantine icon, a Korean roof tile, a Hebrew astrolabe and of course the Rosetta Stone.  I wondered, were any of the objects from America?   (MacGregor admits the selections were hard to make, some obvious omissions, others arguably obscure.)  

Five American objects made the cut; things found in one of the current 50 states.  All are pre-1776.  (But then only the last ten objects in all are post-1776, including the ship’s chronometer from the HMS Beagle and a suffragette-defaced penny.  It really is a fascinating collection.) 

Clovis Spear PointOldest American object is # 5 (they are presented chronologically): a 13,000-year-old fierce spearhead, made by the first American humans, and found in Arizona.  MacGregor tells us he included it to remind us how different human history is in the Americas.  Humans had widely settled Europe and Asia by 40,000 years ago, but not until 12,000 BCE did the retreating ice created the land bridge from Asia to Alaska and the warmer climate a path down the continent.  This type of spear made it possible to kill mammoths and other large mammals, and by 10,000 years ago the large mammals were all gone, and people had reached the southern tip of South America.  But rising seas meant there was no way back, and the peoples of the Americas lost all other human contact for another 10,000 years, developing on their own until Europeans arrived. 

North American Otter PipeNext is object #37, a charming 2000-year-old stone pipe in the form of an otter, found in one of the massive burial mounds in Ohio.   MacGregor describes how the native people used an hallucinogenic form of tobacco for religious ceremonies and chose animals as spirit guides.  He contrasts this practice with the English settlers’ development of and exploitation of tobacco for trade; “Bremen and Bristol, Glasgow and Dieppe all grew rich on American tobacco.” 

So far, yes, I do recognize America in these objects; weapons, extinction, tobacco and commerce. 

Objects #86, 87, 88 are all from the 18^th century, a drum, a helmet and a map.  None are made by white people, Europeans or their American descendents. 

Akan DrumThe drum is West African but found in Virginia by Sir Hans Sloane, whose extensive collection of exotic objects from around the world formed the foundation of the British Museum.  Sloan was himself a wealthy slave owner and wrote about the slaves’ music, noting they were soon forbidden from playing it because it encouraged rebellion.  But Sloan thought his drum was Native American; only 200 years later did a museum curator identify its origin and connect it to horrific scandal of American slavery.  MacGregor says it is an example of “global displacement,” of both objects and people. 

Hawaiian Feather HelmetThe helmet was made of precious bird feathers and presented to Captain Cook by the King of Hawaii, not long before Cook was killed.  No one knows why the Hawaiians turned on Cook after honoring him thus, but the diseases and lifestyle Cook brought to Hawaii managed to murder many of those folks also. 

North American Buckskin MapThe map can be more precisely dated to 1775 because it depicts boundaries set after the Seven Years War between England and France for control of Midwest territory around the Ohio and Mississippi rivers.  Beautifully and poetically etched on buckskin by a native Piankishwa, it details a proposed land grab by the English that circumvented official treaties and was never completed, because of the Revolutionary War.  We are reminded of the great difference between the Native Americans sense of the land as a sacred trust and the settlers who wanted to take it. 

So these three objects are pretty American too; conquest by whites of natives or slaves by means of slavery, musket, disease, lies and money.  

Well, that was depressing.  Let’s try again.  Can we reclaim anything positive and positively American in these objects? 

The spear head: An early example of American ingenuity, great tool making, precision instruments.  

The stone pipe: 18 US states now allow some medicinal use of marijuana.  And there’s a huge interest in various “spiritual but not religious” forms of nature worship. 

The African slave drum: Precursor of so much great American black music, jazz, rap, exceptional drumming. 

The feather helmet: Americans make and wear some pretty cool headgear.  And it’s a reminder we are not all dour New Englanders; our president is a native of exotic Hawaii. 

The buckskin map: Americans have travel in our genes and stories, and we are the only people to have traveled to the moon. 

Check out the book, and imagine what the objects say about your nation, and our human race.

Copyright © 2012 Deborah Streeter 

Much Worse Things to Believe In

I want to be Stephen Colbert so I can sing Christmas songs with Elvis Costello. 

Host of his eponymous news satire and interview show on Comedy Central TV, Colbert, along with Costello, introduced a new carol a few years ago, “Much Worse Things to Believe In.” 

You can watch it here. 

But I know some of my readers, eg in the UK, can’t get Colbert on the Internet.  (Why is that?  Unfair!)  So here’s an anonymous (as opposed to eponymous!) guy (“Ereday”) doing a sweet cover of it.

This young guy writes:  “I dedicate my cover of this gem of a song to the religious folk I've offended with my supercilious atheism."

On the website here I found the song's lyrics (below) another person commented: “I think this song really rings true. As an apathetic agnostic, it's easy for me to either disregard Christmas or not even acknowledge it...but in the end, the believers are sincere--and in the end, happy. We can call them foolish, but as the song title says: ‘There are much worse things to believe in.’” 

In other words, this modern song, unabashedly pro-Christmas, appeals to at least two non-believers.  Having a catchy tune helps. 

So, dear readers, here’s my Christmas gift to you.  Thanks especially to Dale for giving me this forum to share my crazy thoughts, and this week, my best holiday wishes to all of you. 

There are cynics; there are skeptics.
There are legions of dispassionate dyspeptics.
Who regard this time of year as a maudlin insincere
Cheesy crass commercial travesty of all that we hold dear 

When they think that,
Well, I can hear it.
But I pity them their lack of Christmas spirit.
For in a world like ours, take it from Stephen:
There are much worse things to believe in. 

A redeemer, and a Savior,
An obese man giving toys for good behaviour.
The faith in what might be, and the hope that we might see
The answer to all sorrow in a box beneath the tree. 

Find them foolish,
Sentimental,
Well, you're clearly none too bright,
So we'll be gentle.
Don't even try to start vaguely conceivin'
Of all the much worse things to believe in. 

Believe in the judgment, believe in Jihad,
Believe in a thousand variations on a dark and spiteful God
You got your money, you got your power,
You got your science, and the planet's going to end within the hour.
You got your dreams that don't come true.
You got the ones that do 

Then you got your nothin';
Some folks believe in nothin'.
But if you believe in nothin',
Then what's to keep the nothin' from comin' for you? 

Merry Christmas -- Happy New Year!
Now if you'll forgive me, there's a lot to do here.
There are stockings still unhung,
Colored lights I haven't strung,
And a one-man four-part Christmas carol waiting to be sung. 

Call me silly, call me sappy,
Call me many things, the first of which is happy
You doubt, but you're sad.
I don't, and I'm glad.
I guess we're even.
At least that's what I believe in. 

And there are much worse things. 

(Written by David Javerbaum and Adam Schlesinger.  Available on “A Colbert Christmas” on DVD and ITunes, 2008)

Copyright © 2012 Deborah Streeter